Flippin’ efflorescence! Puzzling piecemeal political pre-meals; Descending Jacob’s Ladder into a “hot spot!” A somewhat puzzling Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval; "Oh the wheels on the bus go off the chart!"

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Flippin’ efflorescence!

Print the name of a flower in lowercase. Flip its first letter. 

Divide the result into two words: a piece of green equipment and a green focal point. 

What are this flower and two “green words”?

Note: To “flip” a letter – at least for the purposes of this puzzle – means to rotate it 180 degrees around the x-axis, so, for example, “q” becomes “d” and vise-versa. Thus “quality” becomes “duality.”

Appetizer Menu

Nine Supreme Injustices:

Puzzling piecemeal political pre-meals

1.🚗 What make of automobile would the colonists in the Continental Congress drive?

Hint: The answer is not a Lincoln... Abe had not yet been born.  

2.⚐ Name something you typically need to start a venture or organization – something that is venerated in the United States.  

Remove a letter and the result will be something else you often need to start a venture or organization.  

What are the two words?

3.🎮 Name a game that you might play at an arcade, in three words.  

Change one of the vowels to the previous vowel, and one consonant to the previous consonant, and the result will be a disturbing term for what many wanted to do on January
6th, 2021.  

What is the game, and what might we have seen?  

Hint 1:  the two aren’t just related by wordplay.  

Hint 2:  the second answer not politically (or morally) correct.

4.🤵 Name something most politicians spend a lot of time pursuing, in ten letters.  

Change one letter to get something most politicians don’t spend a lot of time doing.  Change one letter in that to get something many politicians spend a lot of time creating.  

What are the three words?

5.💣 Name a verb in 10 letters that describes what a politician may do with illegal activities.

Shift one letter three places later in the alphabet to describe what their colleagues may do to further that activity.  

What are the two words?

6.👎 Name something many politicians offer in response to criticism.  

Shift one letter 10 places later in the alphabet, and the result will be something politicians should offer their constituents but, sadly, often do not.  

What are these two words?

7.🎸 Name someone who came into the news this year. 

This person has a two-part last name. Reverse the order of those parts, and the result (with a silent letter added) will be a well-known politically active musician who has been performing almost as long as the person in the news has been alive.  

Who are the newsworthy person and the musician?

8.🗼 Name the one-word title of a well-known American movie.  

Abe Lincoln with a George Harrison haircut

Divide that title into two words and translate into another language. The result is a world famous landmark.  

What is the movie and what is the landmark?

9.💇 Spoonerize a well-known Washington DC landmark (7,4 letters) and the result sounds
like what could be four-word instructions for
hair care (3,2,3,4 letters). 

What is the landmark and what are the instructions?

MENU

Duds, Dudes & Drupes Nordic Slice:

Descending Jacob’s Ladder into a “hot spot”

Solve the six clues below:

Note: The answers to Clues #2, #3 and #4 are formed by removing one letter from the answer to the clue immediately above it.

1. Articles of clothing worn above the waist (8
letters)

2. Fruits (7)

3. French word for a certain fruits (6)

4. Pavlova, Canadian Kate’s singing sibling, and a Russian Literature title character (5)

5. First name of a of a Nordic nation’s prime minister (the answer to #4 spelled backward)

6. Many a “hot spot” in that Nordic nation (the answer to #5 with its middle letter inverted)

Riffing Off Shortz And Hochbaum Slices:

“Oh The wheels on the bus go off the chart!”

Will Shortz’s July 10th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Alan Hochbaum of Duluth, Georgia, reads:

Write down the last names of two U.S. presidents. Move a letter from the second name into the first one. You’ll name a vehicle that’s used for special occasions. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Hochbaum Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Write down the first name of a puzzle-maker next to the last name of a U.S. president. 

Remove the last letter of the first name and the first letter of the last name.

Then remove the space between the two. The result spells a U.S. state.

Who are this puzzle-maker and president?

What is the state?

ENTREE #2

Remove an “r” from the surname of a U.S. president. 

Remove also a word for the relationship that president had with his father (which is the same relationship that father had with a second U.S. president from the same century). 

Next, move the penultimate letter to the end. 

Place this result, without a space, next to the surname (also with an “r” removed) of a third president from that century.

The final result is a nine-letter synonym of “rug”.

Who are these three presidents?

What is the synonym of “rug”?

ENTREE #3

Remove one letter from the last name of either of two U.S. presidents to spell a biblical character. 

Remove six total letters from the beginning and end of any of three U.S. presidents to spell a second, related biblical character. 

Who are these five presidents and two biblical characters?

Hint: The three presidents whose names contained the second biblical character, cumulatively, served nearly 28 years in office, an average of more than nine years each!

ENTREE #4

Write down the last names of two U.S. presidents in chronological order. Remove the last five letters of the first name and the first three letters of the second name. Remove the space. You’ll name a farm creature.

Now rearrange the combined letters you removed to spell either:

1. a sausage produced in Switzerland, France
and parts of Germany, or

2. another farm creature and what she might snack on after venturing on down to the stream that flows through the cow pasture.

Who are these presidents?

What is the first farm creature?

What is the sausage?

What are the second farm creature and her snack from the stream?

ENTREE #5

Write down the full names of two U.S. presidents, first, middle and last. Take the surname of the earlier president and the middle name of the latter president. Remove the first two letters of the surname and the first four letters of the middle name, leaving two antonyms.

What are these antonyms?

Who are the presidents?

ENTREE #6

Write down the last names of two U.S. presidents, in reverse-chronological order. Remove an “o” from the first name. Replace the first letter of the second name with two letters: 

Mayim Bialik at the waterpark?

1. the initial of the surname of a former sitting president (within the past 50 years), and 

2. the inititial of the surname of the candidate who defeated him.

The final result is another name for an “air cushion vehicle.”

Who are the two presidents? 

What are the surnames of the former sitting president and the candidate who defeated him?

What is the “air cushion vehicle?”

ENTREE #7

Write down in chronological order the names of four U.S. presidents who are not on Mount Rushmore.

Delete the last three letters of the second’s surname and the last four letters of the fourth’s surname to spell an edible and what you might have to do to it before you can eat it.

Mount Flushmore: Trump, Nixon, Buchanan, A. Johnson

Add to the 1st, 2nd and 6th letters of the third presidential surname the fourth, sixth and seventh letters of his first name to spell a part of a house.  

Spell a part of that part of the house by taking the first four letters of either the first or last names of the first president and replacing the first letter with an “s”.

That “part of the part of the house” is where you might place the edible in order to do what you might have to do to it before you can eat it.    

Who are the four presidents?

What is the edible?

What might you have to do to it?

Where might you place it to do that?

ENTREE #8

Spell the surname of either one of two U.S. presidents backwards.

The result can be broken into either three words or two words. 

The first two of the three words are an exclamation a private may make to his sergeant; the third word is an exclamation a cheerleader may shout.

The two words are:

1. a less common spelling of a classic Japanese dance-drama having a heroic theme, a chorus, and highly stylized action, costuming, and scenery, and

2. an archaic term used to address a man or boy, especially one younger or of lower status than the speaker.

Who are these presidents?

What are the two exclamations?

What are the Japanese dance-drama and the archaic term?

ENTREE #9

Spell the surname of a U.S. president backward. 

Remove the second and fourth letters of the result  to spell an abbreviated term for a verb that means “to rearrange sectors on a hard disk into a contiguous unit.” 

Who is the president?

What is the abbreviated term?

ENTREE #10

Spell the surname of a U.S. president backward.

The first five letters of the result spell the the first two words and the first letter of the third word in the title of a 1969 hit single song. 

An American League baseball team adopted this song in 1977 to use as a taunt to humiliate losing opponents.

The last three letters of the backward surname spell the name of any player on the American League team’s National League crosstown rival.

Who is the president?

What is the song?

Who are the crosstown rivals?

ENTREE #11

Write down the surname a U.S. president who devoured a 12-ounce steak every morning for breakfast. Duplicate the first three letters of this name and place them at the end, in reverse order. Place a  space near the center of this result.

The final result is a two-word term that would have been an ad hominem attack against the president. There are rumors, likely apocryphal, that this term appeared as a slogan on the opposition party’s campaign buttons.

Who is this president?

What is the likely-apocryphal slogan?  

Dessert Menu

Revisiting Flippers* Dessert:

A somewhat puzzling Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval

Name two rhyming seven-letter words that are both associated with a seal. 

Hint: One of the words is hypenated.

* This week’s Schpuzzle of the Week involves a letter that is a “flipper.”

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers
away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you. 

A word, and another, to the wise; Orchestrating the Fall Classics; State subdivisions & shaggy-dog maps; A feminine feline, whiskered & waggish; Just another Mickey Mouse puzzle from Lego Lambda!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

A word, and another, to the wise

Metis, a Greek deity known for her wisdom, was Zeus’ wife (the first of seven). 

Anagram the combined letters of another of Metis’ familial relationships to spell insights that wise people often experience, in two words. 

What is Metis’ other familial relationship?

What do we call insights that the wise often experience?

Hint: Metis’ other familial relationship, like “Zeus’ wife,” is a two-word term.

Appetizer Menu

“GeoFantastic” Appetizer:

State subdivisions & shaggy-dog maps

Diminution

1. 🗺Take a word for a state. Remove one
letter from this word to obtain a word for a subdivision of a state. What are the two words?

Shaggy-dog map dissection

2. 🐶Take the name of a geographic feature in Europe in 12 letters, Remove and rearrange six letters to give the state that it is in. From the remainder, remove and rearrange four letters to give the name, in the language of the country, of what forms the geographic feature. 

Two consonants are left over. Double one. These three consonants are three of the five letters in the generic word for the feature. What are the geographic feature, state, substance, and the generic name for the feature?

Death and taxes?

3.♰ 💲Think of something that one cannot avoid, in seven letters. Exchange the third and sixth letters of this word. 

Then insert two letters after the new sixth letter. These inserted letters are each adjacent (in the alphabet) to this sixth letter. 

The result will be something else that most people cannot, at some point, avoid. What are these two things?

Two opposing meanings

4. ➖➕❔Think of a nine-letter word often related to subtraction from a list. In another meaning, this same word could be considered an addition to a list. What is this word?

Reciprocals

5. ⅕ Think of two five-letter words with opposite meanings. Change one vowel in one word to obtain the other word.

Politiconstruct

6.(𝔁+𝔂)𝅘𝅥𝅯𝆕🏛Take the name of an algebraic construct. It sounds like the name of a former U.S. politician and a musical concept. What are the algebraic construct, politician, and musical concept?

MENU

Playing Second Bass/Viola Slice:

Orchestrating the Fall Classics

Find the following three words:

1. the U.S. city where a ballplayer began his major league career, 

2. the first name of that player, and 

3. a musical instument he played. 

Remove the last letter in this string of three words.

The result is the name of an orchestra.

What is this orchestra?

Who is the ballplayer and what was his instrument?

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:

Just another Mickey Mouse puzzle from Lego Lambda!

Will Shortz’s July 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Joseph Young, of St. Cloud, Minnesota, reads:

Name a well-known fictional character in two words. Remove two letters from the first word 
in the name. The result is the plural form of the second word. What character is this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name someone, in two words, who some people suspect may be a fictional character. 

Add an “a” somewhere inside the second word to spell a Brazilian dance. 

Change the last letter of the first word to an “s” to spell body parts situated immediately below other body parts. 

These “other body parts,” according to Wikipedia, are engaged in “pronounced movement” during the dance. 

Who may be considered a fictional character by some people?

What is the Brazilian dance?

What are the adjacent body parts?

ENTREE #2

Name a well-known fictional character in two words. 

Take the first word. Its first letter is also the first letter in the three-letter airport code of an upper Midwest U.S. airport. Replace it with the second and third letters in that code, forming a new word.

Leave the second word as it is.

The result is two things that come into contact on construction sites.

Who is this character? 

What two things come into contact on construction sites 

What is the airport?

ENTREE #3

Take the first names of two well-known fictional characters  – one beginning with an “F”, the other with an “I” – who share the same last name. 

Rearrange the combined letters of these first names to form three words:

1. a word for a newlywed woman who just moved with her hubby into their first home (5 letters),

2. a piece of living-room furniture they purchased (5 letters), and

3. a second piece of living-room furniture they purchased (4 letters).

What characters are these?

What are the words for the newlywed woman and two pieces of furniture?

ENTREE #4

Name a well-known fictional character from television, in two words. Rearrange the combined letters of these words to spell a 3-letter noun describing this character and a six-letter biblical figure not described by this noun. 

What fictional character and biblical figure these?

What is the 3-letter noun?

ENTREE #5

Name a well-known fictional character in two words who portrayed a high school instructor on television. 

Reverse the order of the words and remove an “L” from one of them to form a two-word term for something turbulent and frothy.

Who is this fictional character?

What is something turbulent and frothy?

ENTREE #6

Name a well-known fictional character in two words. Remove two letters – the last letter in each word – to spell the first name of a puzzle-maker and a noun that some might use to describe him.

Who is this fictional character?

Who is the puzzle-maker and what is the noun some may use to describe him?

Hint: Removing the last letter of the puzzle-maker’s surname results in an antonym of an adjective that describes his talent and expertise.

Hint: if you spell the noun some may use to describe the puzzle-maker backward, the result is a word for something he “is in,” with “the.” 

ENTREE #7

Take two consecutive words in the lyrics of a song that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Record of the Year.

The first word is the first word in the name of two fictional characters.

The odd-numbered letters in the second word spell a homophone of the surname of one of the  fictional characters.

The first three letters of a Texas city and the last two letters of the second word in the song lyrics spell the surname of the other fictional character.

What is the song and what are the two consecutive words?

Who are the two fictional characters?

ENTREE #8

Name a not-really-all-that-well-known fictional character in two words. She appears in a novel by an author who taught Russian and European literature to Ruth Bader at Cornell University.

Anagram the combined letters of the fictional character’s name to spell the first and last
names of the author.

Who are this fictional character and author

Hint: The author, who was well aware of this anagram (he created it!) is therefore also the author of this puzzle, albeit posthumously.

Note: Entree #9 is the brainchild of Tom Rymsza, an aspiring playwright who posts comments on Blaine’s Blog, and is now also a contributor to Puzzleria! Thank you, Tom, and welcome!

ENTREE #9

Write a seven-letter word in all capital letters that might describe a person. 

Add one line and rearrange to get
another seven-letter word that is the opposite of the first.

What are these two words?

Dessert Menu

Backward Snack Brand Dessert:

A feminine feline, whiskered & waggish

Spell a snack brand backward. Move the first four letters of this reversal to the end. 

The result, although it rhymes with a feminine pronoun, is not really a word.

It might, however, be used as a kind of “pseudo-pronoun” to refer waggishly to a feminine feline. 

What are this snack brand and waggish pronoun?

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

Happiness is a nifty, fine puzzle; Literary allusion sans inclusion; The ABCs of serving rotisserie food; Volcano, metal, sand & gravel, barren-landscape boulder; “Cars and Coronavirus”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

The ABCs of serving rotisserie food

Write down the five-letter name of a food. 

Move each letter sixteen spots later in the circular alphabet — so A would become Q, B would become R, etc. 

The result will be a word for how the food is often served. 

What are these two words?

Hint: The “spittin’” image of the roasted rotisserie kebabs, pictured here, is a red-hot herring. Our intended answer, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. 

Appetizer Menu

Jacobian Appetizer:

“Cars and Coronavirus”

1. 🚘Take the name of a car company. 

Add the letters in “I stall.” 

Rearrange the combined letters to get a city in Virginia. 

What are the names of the car and the city in Virginia?

2. 🤒Take a word meaning “sickness.” 

Remove the first two letters to get another
word meaning “sickness.” 

What words are these?

3.🚗What property do the Nissan Rogue, Buick Lacrosse, and Buick Verano have in common?

MENU

Patriotic Slice:

Literary allusion sans inclusion

Name a person associated with American patriotism. 

Change an “S” in the name to an “L”. Rearrange the result to spell a type of literary work the person composed and two images to which its text alludes, but not includes. 

Name this author, literary work and two alluded-to images.

Hint: The literary work the person composed is a synonym of “song.”

Riffing Off Shortz And Van Mechelen Slices:

Happiness is a nifty, fine puzzle

Will Shortz’s June 26th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle is a riddle created by Greg Van Mechelen, of Berkeley, California. It reads:

How old was Reverend Spooner when he
found happiness?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Van Mechelen Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker with two-part surname. Spoonerize the two parts. 

The new first part is what a boy grows up to be.

The new second part starts with a four-letter syllable that sounds like the the surname of a past baseball executive and promoter who was associated with “disco nights,” and a “little person who wore the fraction1/8 on his uniform. 

The surname ends with what sounds like the first two syllables of the first name of the executive’s first wife. 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

ENTREE #2

Reverend Spooner was 59 years old when he found happiness. Spoonerize two consecutive words in that sentence. 

The result, if you insert a consonant in the second position of one of the two spoonerized  words, is a critter and a quality this critter’s ears may likely possess.

What is this critter and what is the quality?

ENTREE #3

How old was Reverend Spooner when he finally began managing his finances in a frugal
manner after he inherited an estate of land?

Hint: When Reverend Spooner was this old, he may have found wealth but he had not yet found happiness.

ENTREE #4

Express a two-digit number by pronouncing its digits, in order, then spoonerize the result. 

(For example 23 would be pronounced not as “twenty-three” but as “two-three,” which when spoonerized sounds like “threw-tee,” which is what an angry golfer might have done after hooking his drive into the rough.)

Now spoonerize such a two-digit number that was sported on the uniforms of quarterbacks with the initials J.U. and J.M. The result, when preceded by a color, results in what sounds like a brand-name alcoholic beverage.

What are the number and brand name?

ENTREE #5

Express a two-digit number by pronouncing its digits, in order. (For example 26 would be pronounced not as “twenty-six” but as “two-six” which, when spoonerized, sounds like “Sioux tix,” which is what fans of University of North Dakota football or hockey  might have coveted prior to 2012, when the nickname was changed from “Fighting Sioux” to “Fighting Hawks.”

And now (for something completely different), spoonerize such a two-digit number that is associated with Petrarchan and Shakespearean forms of poetry. 

The result is an oxymoronic phrase that contradicts a quotation attributed to American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman.

What are the number and oxymoronic phrase?

What was General Sherman’s quotation?

ENTREE #6

Express a two-digit number by pronouncing its digits, in order. For example 20 would be pronounced not as “twenty” but as “two-zero” or as “two-oh” which when spoonerized sound like “zoo tea-row” or as “Ooh toe!” (which both just so happen to be nonsensical phrases).

Spoonerize a similar such number to form what sounds like either:

1. the Jewish people or their homeland, and the name of a Roman emperor, or

2. the response blurted out by a precocious student, with her hand raised high and waving wildly, because she is sure of the answer to a tough question her teacher posed to the class.

What is this number?

What are the Jewish people or their homeland, and the name of the Roman emperor?

What response does the precocious girl blurt out?

ENTREE #7

Express a two-digit number by pronouncing its digits in order (as in Entrees #4, #5 and #6). Spoonerize a similar such number to form what sounds like what team president Steve Mills, general manager Scott Perry, and other members of an NBA franchise’s brain trust do that is a part of their job.

What is this number? What must this NBA brain trust do that is a part of their job?

Dessert Menu

Star-Spangled Dessert:

Volcano, metal, sand & gravel, barren-landscape boulder 

Rearrange the combined letters of three consecutive words of our national anthem to spell three geological words: a precious metal, a part of a volcano, and a ridge of stratified sand and gravel.

Those same letters can be rearranged to spell a two-word description of a record-breaking boulder and a word for the barren landscape in California where you will find it. 

What are these three words of our national anthem?

What are the six six geographical words?

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.